Today we drove to the resort town of La Grande-Motte 24kms from Montpellier and which was largely built between 1960 and 1975 on virgin beachfront dunes.
It is characterised by the architecture with many of the prominent buildings pyramidal in form. With 2 million tourists per year it is one of the favorite resorts of the French.
From our point of view we wanted to visit the Mediterranean again and go for a last seaside swim in Europe and from that point of view while the water was not as warm as the day it was pleasant to have a dip.
As for the town, yes it was well laid out and felt beachy but a little sterile, certainly not "grande". With schools having returned, this week we think, after the long summer holiday the place was not crowded.
The World Nacra 17 sailing championships are currently being held off La Grande-Motte and there are two NZ crews taking part in what is the first world championships for this mixed sex foiling catamaran. Today was the first race in the champs so it will be good to see how our representatives fare over the next week or so.
As we saw in Le Grau Du-Roi, there were sand sculptures on the beach at La Grande-Motte - one being the Last Supper ...
...and the other a car load of Minions!
Today is our last day in the south of France as tomorrow we start the drive up to Paris to catch our flight to Singapore next Monday. We have enjoyed our stay in Montpellier particularly our day trips to Uzes and the towns in the Camargue.
We have two stops between here and Paris, Clermont- Ferrand and Orleans each of two nights as the drives each day are relatively long.
From memory the accommodation at Clermont-Ferrand does not have internet so we may well be offline for 48 hours!
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